In recent years, many developments have been made in microwave packaging to help improve the quality of sandwiches for microwave heating. Many materials exist that convert microwave energy into heat thus providing crisping, browning or toasting of foods such as bread. Some of the many materials developed for providing crisping of the surface of cooked food are those disclosed in U.S. Patent Nos. 4,518,651; 4,267,420; 4,434,197; 4,612,431; 4,735,513. The material is generally referred to as microwave susceptor material.
In the convenience oriented world in which we live, retailers such as supermarket grocers would find it highly desirable to make available to the consumer a variety of sandwiches that would microwave as well as an oven baked sandwich made fresh at a pizzeria or sub shop. With the tremendous proliferation of pizzerias and sub shops, as well as other fast food units, there is hard felt need for the aforementioned retailers to reverse the erosion of their share of the consumer dollar expended on food. More importantly, most consumers long for products that quickly microwave with quality that approaches the quality achieved when heating with a conventional oven.
As prior art reveals, deficiencies have prevented any microwaved sandwich from coming close to the quality of an oven baked pizzeria or sub shop sandwich. Attempts to use materials that facilitate crisping i.e. suceptors and/or the use of specially formulated breads, have resulted in inferior product.
One major shortcoming is the amount of time needed to heat the sandwich throughout causing the bread to be exposed to too much microwave energy even when susceptor is used. After heating is complete, the product is perceived as having bread too tough, dry and hard in many spots. In turn, if the product is microwaved less time in order to produce soft bread with a crisp surface, this often results in cold spots in other areas of the sandwiches.
Additionally, the juices and/or water separation from the meats, chicken, fish, sauces etc., can make the bread in contact soggy due to this moisture separation that can occur during production, the storage period and especially during the microwaving period. To help alleviate this separation, ingredients such as binders, starches and zanthum gums are often utilized but these detract from the quality and purity when compared to sandwiches made without these ingredients at a pizzeria or sub shop.
Another shortcoming is the time needed to microwave the conventionally packaged sandwich of prior art. It would be desirable to most consumers to be able to dramatically decrease the microwaving time.